Our studies contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of play in fostering inclusion, engagement, and participation in both early childhood and primary education. Furthermore, we have developed a theoretical framework that conceptualizes dialectical contradictions in early childhood and primary school education and explores how these contradictions can be addressed and transformed through adult-child joint play.
Adult support and participation in children’s play is essential for promoting equity, inclusion and student agency in early learning environments. However, adults often face challenges engaging in children's play without unduly influencing its character or limiting the freedom inherent in play. In addition, research suggests that sustaining long-term play activities in ECEC settings has become increasingly difficult due to growing demands for efficiency and broader processes of schoolification, which may reduce the time and space available for sustained play activities.
We approach these questions from a cultural-historical and Vygotskian perspective, with particular attention to forms of adult-child joint play known as playworlds. A central premise of playworld research is the need to move beyond the dichotomy between children’s "free" play and adult-guided pedagogical play. The projects investigate how adults and children co-create shared play activities, as well as the opportunities and challenges that emerge through these interactions.
The PI of the playworld research at the University of Helsinki is
IPWNW is a group of researchers, teachers, caregivers, artists, and even imaginary characters who share a passion to do research through playing and imagining together. IPWNW have been creating playworlds together for over two decades and across places: Finland, Sweden, Japan, Serbia and the United States. The IPWNW was co-founded at the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition (
Playworlds are a form of adult-child joint play in which children, teachers, caregivers, artists, and researchers create and study imaginary worlds together. Adult-child joint play is typically structured around a piece of literature, or a work of art. Adults and children work together to ‘bring the literature to life’ through drama and play. Children contribute with their expertise in playing and adults with their experiences from the adult world (art and science). While studying playworlds, researchers learn and develop new ways to do science, and artists learn and develop new ways to do art by being in playworlds with children.
The term playworld originates from a preschool pedagogy designed by the Swedish scholar Gunilla Lindqvist and is influenced by the work of psychologist Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky. Many Finnish playworlds are shaped by Pentti Hakkarainen’s narrative learning theory; the U.S. playworlds are inspired by the work of the preschool teacher and author, Vivian Paley, and the Japanese playworlds are influenced by an approach called Hakken to Bōken (Discovery and Adventure). In Japan, playworlds have been recently developed also in senior care with dementia patients.